Voting could be very convenient, too. A friend's future mother-in-law went to vote (in one of the suburbs) and found out she already had!

These small towns have such good services....

When I was in college in Chicago (at IIT), the concensus was that every city job (except, possibly, the police) was a patronage job. This is why Chicago had 5 men (this may not have included the driver) on a garbage truck (I think NYC had 3). It had nothing to do with union work rules; it had to do with maximizing opportunities for patronage positions.